5 Tips to Safeguard Your Domain

You just found the perfect domain name, congratulations! You purchase it for a year and work really hard to build its popularity and…somebody steals it! Now what? Although exremly unfair, you might as well kiss that domain name goodbye because when they stole your domain, they stole it legally!

Do I Own or Rent My Domain?

The unfortunate reality is we do not own our domain names. We may have come up with the idea and worked hard to build its popularity, but if we’re not on our toes somebody may steal it from under our noses. Think of your domain name as being leased to you, except if you miss one payment your landlord may kick you out on the street and never let you come back. Prevention is the key to avoiding the horror of someone stealing your hard work. Follow these tips to lock down your domain.

5 Tips to Guard Your Domain Name

1. See if your registrar has a reminder service and sign up to be reminded when your domain is about to expire.

2. Consider paying up front for several years at a time. Most registrars are fairly inexpensive and allow you to purchase up to 10 years at one time.

3. Once you have purchased 5-10 years it may be a good idea to renew it every year. This way you keep your cushion of protection.

4. Lock your domain. If you cannot afford to purchase several years up front some services offer to lock your domain in case you forget to renew it and then unlock your domain to you once you renew your domains registration. Of course this service will cost an additional fee should you choose to use it.

5. Go right now and check and to see when your domain will expire. If it expires in less than a year renew it for two, if it expires in one renew it for at least another year, doing so will give you an added cushion in case you forget.
Following these tips will help prevent the domain wolves from breaking through the fences and devouring your flocks.

Added Bonus: Search Engines tend to show favor to domains which are registered longer than a year. This shows stability to the search engines and lets them know that the site is less likely to be a spam site.